Category: Short Takes

Just sent in my application to the United Nations for the Pig Latin interpreter post.

I think my chances are good. I’ve been speaking it since the third grade.

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One bad shower can scar you for life.

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When you think about it, The Joker is the ultimate example of motivational success. He’s upbeat, cheerful, he has high self-esteem, he’s willing to try anything, and he recognizes no limits. He’s like the perfect corporate CEO.

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It just seems so odd that some Earth animals grow faucets on their bodies for the young ones to drink nutrient fluid from. That can’t be the most efficient way to do it. On my planet, we take the young ones out into the Solar Forest and plug them in for a few months. After that, they eat rocks like the rest of us.

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In Moscow, there’s a museum of Russian-made sex toys. They can’t actually demonstrate them because the room fills up with diesel smoke, but you can look at them.

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Movie Idea: A renegade environmentalist releases a deadly virus into the New York City airport, knowing it will spread worldwide in a matter of days. The virus kills and zombifies all it infects.

The catch is that it only works on Chihuahuas. Bands of surviving humans all over the world hurry to install screen doors, don ankle-high boots and arm themselves with brooms.

But victims continue to die, and international panic ensues. Finally, Autumn arrives, and the zombie Chihuahuas succumb to the 60 degree temperatures.

The final scene is a New Zealand farmer going out to check on his sheep. He slides open the barn door, and there is a sudden flash of bulging eyes and sharp, white teeth.

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Now I’m wondering if the term “hand job” — which seems like it would be fairly recent — might actually be tens of thousands of years old (in whatever language they spoke at the time, of course).

“Gronk give Oona big fish, Oona give Gronk googawonga?”

Hey, someone has to think about these things

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I’m clearing and organizing some of the piles of paper in my office. One note I came across, just something jotted down on a scrap of paper, said: “I want to be a member of the last insane generation.”

Fat chance.

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Vaping. There are some new dumb ideas out there that people think are smart ideas simply because they’re different from the old dumb ideas.

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When they know nobody can overhear them, the superheroes who can fly make fun of those who can’t.

FLIGHT-SHAMING. It’s the ugly little secret of the superhero business.

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I’m wondering if all the people against spanking are also all against genital mutilation. Because I see a LOT of ardent posts against “brutalizing your child,” but very few against circumcision.

But hey, that’s NORMAL. Besides, it’s mainly about health, right? It’s for their own good.

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In an adjacent universe, on Just Slightly Magic World, there are real fairies who come to deserving people’s houses and leave gifts. For instance, there’s an Apple Pie Fairy which comes at midnight and leaves a generous slice of warm, delicious apple pie for every member of the family.

This is not as good as it sounds, however. Owing to the fact that fairies aren’t human and don’t actually understand humans, the Apple Pie Fairy leaves those slices of apple pie in unexpected places — for instance, on the pillow of each family member, or artistically arranged on the toilet seat.

Worse, the Apple Pie Fairy is hypersensitive and prone to fits of vengeful rage, so nobody dares say anything.

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When an octopus finds a dark hole on the ocean floor, it doesn’t stop to wonder what horrible thing might be lurking in there, it moves in and BECOMES the horrible thing lurking in there.

This is basically the same reason Donald Trump is running for president.

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From the days of Jesus’ healing miracles, SECRET THOUGHTS OF THE HEALED BLIND MAN!

This morning there is some sort of very large object in the sky emitting light so bright it hurts to look at it. Surely that can’t be natural.

It came up over the horizon and has slowly climbed into the sky, moving east to west, almost as if it’s orbiting the planet. It doesn’t look really big, but if it is in orbit, it must be huge.

There’s nobody on the streets looking at it. I wonder if anybody has even noticed it up there. It’s like they’re all taking it for granted or something.

What if I ask my neighbor and it turns out it’s something everybody else sees every day, and they laugh at me? I don’t want to look stupid. But damn, that thing worries me.

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I’ll bet snakes have to slither into someplace dark in order to sleep. Stupid reptiles — the rest of us evolved eyelids. (Doesn’t mean we sleep but, you know, we COULD.)

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Idea Book: Novel: “Worst Contact”

A previously undiscovered tribe is located by aerial surveys of the Amazon. Anthropologists make plans to carefully contact them. But a Madison Avenue PR firm decides to jump in and contact them first, taking bids from companies for which products to introduce them to, and to film their reactions to.

The first two products are Milky Way candy bars and Budweiser beer. The civilized world is captivated by the Amazonians’ filmed astonishment at the irresistibly sweet taste of the candy, and the hilarious effects of the beer. Sales skyrocket, and more companies vie for product placement opportunities. The Amazonians are quickly introduced to such foods as Ranch Style Beans, Armour Vienna Sausage, to Wrigley’s Hubba Bubba bubble gum, and even Marlboro cigarettes.

Soon a reality TV show features an extended Amazonian family, showing family members experimenting with clothes, shoes, modern firearms, fast food. Christian missionaries arrive from the Vatican, and episodes feature the reaction of the Stone Age primitives to the revelations of God and Heaven. iPhones are handed out, and the men of the tribe are directed to first person shooter games, and YouTube videos of twerking. A staffer on the film crew begins distributing heroin to tribal friends, and they begin sneaking off to shoot up, all captured on hidden cameras.

But I think it would all have a happy ending. Probably include a lesson on the Indomitable Spirit of Man or some shit like that.

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Figures of speech not to use: Like a chihuahua in a blender. Salty as whale’s piss. Pathetic as Sarah Palin’s brain, spread out on a dissecting table. Lame as that handicapped beggar I just ran over. Exciting as a power surge during a brain scan. As unsexy as furries at a veterinarian’s convention. Hungry as a Muslim at a Pork Festival. Like a honey badger with hemorrhoids. Ugly as a fat man’s back pimples. Scary as fireworks outside a Gulf War vet’s house. Like taking a dozen Xanax and listening to Wayne Newton. Creepy as Karl Rove in ass-less chaps.

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Years in acting school, and finally one day you get The Call. You’re invited to star in an upcoming movie. You excitedly accept, thinking >>This Is It<< — your big break, the day you will look back on from your future as a rich, internationally famous movie star, and think “That’s where it all started.”

But when you get the script, you find out it’s something called CopEye, a crappy police-themed ripoff of the movie Popeye. It’s not even shitty Popeye, it’s a shitty tearaway of Popeye. And there are utterly unnecessary nude scenes.

Kids, that’s what real life is like.

No, just kidding. Your big break will be a remake of Lawrence of Arabia, and Peter O’Toole will look like a second-rate ham compared to you. Your whole life will be like that.

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All you people afraid of clowns — coulrophobics — think of this:

When clowns take off their red noses, makeup and clown clothes, they look just like normal people. They walk around in public and nobody knows what they really are.

They are HIDDEN clowns, SECRET clowns, SURREPTITIOUS clowns. They might even brush past on a city street and TOUCH you. They might even do it DELIBERATELY.

You think you’re safe from clowns, never knowing they’re touching you ALL THE TIME.

You can’t escape from clowns, because they are hidden among the people around you. Watching you. Walking up behind you without you knowing. Thinking about touching you.

Clowns. Everywhere.

Everywhere.

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The Bible is a lot more stirring and dramatic when you read it in the original Klingon.

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Dick Cheney has had five heart attacks and a heart transplant. The way I figure it, he has one Horcrux left, and then he becomes mortal.

Anyone in his neighborhood, look for the large snake he always keeps close to him.

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It seems to me that one of the inevitable consequences of advanced civilization would be immortality. Why, if you could beat every disease, including aging and eventually death, would you NOT choose that?

In any society that had the technology to extend life, those who chose it would live on and on, those who didn’t would be self-selected out, until eventually there would a community made up mostly of immortals.

I suggest one of the reasons we haven’t been contacted, if it’s at all possible, is because we’re so ephemeral to them that they consider us more beastly than civilized.

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I was thinking today that we usually imagine a single dividing line between Conservative and Liberal, but there are actually THREE major dividers along the socio-political spectrum.

There’s that middle conservative-liberal divider (which is a broad line rather than a thin one), but there’s another line between Conservative and Conservative-Crazy, and a third line between Liberal and Liberal-Asshole.

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If we’d evolved from dogs, Hump Day would have a whole different meaning.

The Swedish Chef is a horrible insult to Swedish people! I say this as someone who may or may not have Swedish ancestry, and may or may not actually know some Swedish people.

But I’m offended anyway, just in case.

Wait … is he the Swedish Chef, or the Swiss Chef? I mean, whatever, right? But either way, it’s an insult.

Also: Shout out to all my Swedish/Swiss peeps! Gehoorty verdoor de chicky stew!

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Just ordered an Earth-food item called a “peetsah.” It comes with a leathery base made from a type of crushed grass seeds, a paste made from a fruiting body of a terrestrial plant, a congealed material prepared from the white fluid squeezed out of the nether paps of certain herbivorous mammals, a variety of sliced and chopped dirt-grown plants, and the shredded muscle tissue of a large bird. The whole thing is thrown into a heating chamber and singed for 20 minutes or so. It sounds revolting, but when my people return for me, I’m going to suggest we take the recipe and the ingredients back with us. That business about consuming pure energy does get boring at times.

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If a product is “tainted,” does that mean it has actually come into contact with someone’s taint?

If we had evolved from deer, I wonder if we’d all get out of school and jobs for several weeks in the fall, so the guys could scratch their horns against trees, and get in fights.

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I’m imagining that we first-worlders will have to switch over to strict vegetarian diets as population continues to increase, and third-worlders will switch over to grass.

Fortunately, they will be provided with a genetically engineered digestive enzyme that will allow them to eat the grass, at least enough that they will still have sufficient energy to reproduce. Because god help us if people don’t have their “right” to have children.

But also fortunately, we will be able to kill off just about every other large mammal on earth and take over that vital living space. Because hey, fuck them, right? They’re ANIMALS.

Wait, you don’t want to kill off those animals? … Why do you hate the starving babies? They’re BABIES, and they’re STARVING. Why do you want to kill them? Why? What’s wrong with you?

So when are we getting the nanites that give us extra strength, rapid healing and superior vision and hearing?

Because I’m READY.

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If nobody knew about milk, and you suddenly showed up and said “Hey, I drink this whitish, greasy liquid I squeeze out of the underside of those big smelly animals over there!” …

I’m pretty sure somebody would say “Eww, you filthy, gross bastard!”

Come to think of it, you might even get arrested, charged with bestiality or something.

Especially if you accidentally pointed at a bull.

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My heart goes out to all the victims of ebola. It’s bad enough that you have this horrible deadly disease, but even worse when people quarantine and marginalize you. That’s why I’m starting my new campaign of compassion, “Hug An Ebola Victim.”

We need to let them know we still care.

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I think it would be fun to see a TV show called “History’s Assholes.”

Dear History Channel …

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In the alternate universe where superheroes are real …

What do superhero comics look like?

Because if they’re just illustrated adventures of the real superheroes, they’re sort of like People Magazine, aren’t they? And what 15-year-old boy would read THAT?

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One of my cowboy friends, Tom Wood, got malignant melanoma and died of it. I was going through a stack of old papers and came across one of the last letters he wrote me.

“Dear Hank: It was good to talk to you last night. Sorry I wasn’t quite with it, but I get drowsy in the evening from my pain medication. Since my surgery I have just been taking it real easy.”

It’s dated 1986. He died 28 years ago. I can still remember the sound of his voice, the feel of his handshake, all his likes — Australian country music, darts, Irish Cream — and dislikes. He was one of the cowboy “gearheads,” the guy who has to have all the cool wild rags, hats, dusters, belts, boots, etc. Hell, he had his own branding iron pattern, a T-hanging-W.

He died at the age of 39. At the time he was about 5 years older than me, but now he seems like an idiot kid.

Death is weird. And I miss the dopey bastard.

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I’m glad they fly ebola victims back to the U.S. Because after they’re infected with a deadly disease, we really need to Bring Them Home.

And that charter flight … I do hope they clean that plane with fanatical care. Although I hear the Cheney family is looking for a nice comfy jet to travel to a private island retreat.

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Reality TV Series: Ten C-list actors and actresses and two stand-up comics are cloistered together on a gated Hollywood estate, with a pool, tennis courts, jacuzzi and such. Hidden cameras are everywhere, and the group stays together for 21 days.

A grounds-keeper with ebola is introduced on the third day.

I’m pretty sure there would be Madcap Hijinks.

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Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how did you like Dallas?

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So if Superman was your daddy (by a Hollywood starlet, say, who wanted the publicity), and he was still using a secret identity, would your last name be Superman?

Ha. I was just thinking of writing a fake news story in which the little-known U.S. Government Office of Gravity altered the gravity at different times and in different places in order to favor business and manipulate private citizens. For instance, during the armed standoff at Waco, the office turned up the gravity in that area so bullets fired at federal agents would fall short. And on election day, the gravity near certain polling places is turned up so minority voters will be too tired to vote.

Bet I could get people to believe it.

Besides which, I’m pretty sure the gravity was up to 1.5 Gs where I was today. Obama!!!

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Flasher Philosophy:

“I’ll show you mine if … Aw, screw it, I’ll just show you mine.”

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Aw, come on. If I was REALLY living in a Fool’s Paradise, there would be a lot more Batman T-shirts, ice cream, water slides and big funny hats.

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Back when the guillotine was so busy during the French Revolution … do you suppose they washed and disinfected the blade after each use?

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But what would you do for TWO Klondike bars?

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Back in the days of Rome, it must have been pretty funny when someone lit a candle and those balls of fire started shooting out every few seconds.

I guess we’re lucky today that we only have to use them for Fourth of July.

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What would zoos look like if we assumed elephants were sentient beings?

Seriously, I’ve wondered for years why we don’t have a 30-million-dollar project to really map elephant intelligence and cognition. And then treat all other elephants according to what we find out.

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Another great day when, once again, you didn’t wake up with the police pounding on your door.

They’re probably still collecting evidence.

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If robins made a sound like jackhammers … mornings would be a lot less fun.

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If there was a trillion-to-one chance that you could get struck by lightning, and then you got struck by lightning, you’d almost HAVE TO assume there was some special intent involved. “What’s behind this? What caused it? Who did it? And why?”

But the thing is, given the population of planet earth and the frequency of lightning strikes, sooner or later somebody DOES get struck by lightning.

To the rest of us, it’s nothing special. But to THAT guy, it’s got to feel significant.

Somewhere in this is a lesson about all of life: “It’s probably not about you.”

Ouch.

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I’m sitting in a local coffee shop this afternoon, reading and kicking back, when I hear raised voices. One of the local street characters is SHOUTING at the little girl behind the counter. I realize I’ve been hearing them for a bit, gradually escalating, and now he’s yelling “Whatchu mean, call the pow-leece?! Whatchu gonna tell the pow-leece?” He storms out.

I’m thinking “WTF? Who has to get this excited in a COFFEE SHOP in sleepy little Schenectady, New York?”

Thinking about it, though, I realize it probably has nothing to do with this moment and this place. It’s about his whole life, and the trap he’s found himself in — a trap that he no doubt contributed to, as we all do, but that also has some large element of the outside world at fault.

But I do not know what I can do about that today. I read my book, finish my coffee, and go about my life.

Dang it, they fired me from my supermarket produce-department job. Hey, I thought the sign over the bananas saying “SWEET AND JUICY!!!” was a real attention-getter.

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In any issue of science and public health, there’s the science, and there’s the socio-cultural system in which the science is carried out.

If you talk to pro-GMO people about GMOs, they’re only willing to discuss the science issue. They’re not willing to talk about the social matrix where the science happens.

The social matrix includes the fact that the scientists are working for somebody, they’re paid to do certain things. Being a scientist does not necessarily imply ethicality. We like to think it does, but it doesn’t.

The companies those scientists work for have mandates that are only peripherally concerned with your health and safety, and centrally concerned with profits. They don’t want to get sued and lose money, but there are times it’s cheaper to fight it in court and put off a settlement as long as possible than it is to pay damages — or even to proactively head off the problem ahead of time. That happens all the time. Cheaper to pay off politicians to change the laws.

The “you” in your head is centrally important to you, literally the most important thing in the universe. By extreme contrast, though we don’t like to think it, there are people about whom you literally don’t care anything. They might die in a speed-boat accident, and you might see the video of the accident and think only how funny it was. The idea of their fear, severe injury, drowning and bleeding to death at the same time, and being wholly conscious and terrified as it happened, would probably not even occur to you. It’s a sort of de facto sociopathy, but it’s also normal, because none of us can know or care about every stranger.

The thing about any corporation is that it’s run by people to whom YOU are the speed-boat victim. They not only don’t care about you, they CAN’T. This is a hard thing to realize for some of us. Those of us who think Science can do no wrong, they deliberately assert that every company dealing in GMOs must care so much that they would never let anything happen to precious us. When the opposite has been demonstrated — in every industry — over and over and over, thousands of times.

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I have in mind a new TV show, but I’m not sure who to pitch it to. It’s sort of a mashup of Breaking Bad, Twilight and The Walking Dead.

The sparkley vampires are made out of pure cocaine, and the crack-addict zombies want to snort them. And there’s a love story.

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If you meet someone from India for the first time, you should immediately ask them a question about your computer. Because man, those people know computers.

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I’m thinking of a pattern (or style, or color) of paint called Blood Spatter. Thinking how fun it would be to have a truck painted that color. A spray of blood over the hood, one off the left side of the front bumper, maybe one over the roof. The laughs would just never stop.

It was common for my mom to get mad at me when I got hurt. By the time I was 12, I was regularly concealing injuries and accidents so I wouldn’t have to deal with the uproar. I once fell off a 10-foot church roof — onto my head and neck (no snickers, you bastards) — and my first impulse after I was able to get up was to hide.

I suppose this MIGHT be what informs my feeling today about “victim blaming.” If I walk out into heavy traffic and a car hits me, it seems to me that it’s partly my fault. If someone says “What the hell were you thinking? Never walk out there like that without looking!” and then someone else chirps “Oh no, you’re VICTIM BLAMING!!” … I’m not going to see that second person as the truest friend.

If something happens to you and you contributed in any way to the situation … yes, you do need to make better decisions next time. And other people need to be told so THEY can make better decisions for the future. This does NOT mean I think drivers should have perfect freedom to run over anybody they want. It does mean I think we live in the real world, and that nobody gets a free pass on the consequences of their own contributory actions.

I just can’t see it as black and white. There’s a lot of discussional space between “this is totally your fault” and “nothing is your fault, ever; it’s all THEIR fault.”

But in some circles, a desire for those gradations of nuance makes me a monster.

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Enough of this “day” shit.

I will now go into the Sleep Chamber to lie on a resilient surface, pass into a temporary state of unconsciousness, and probably rise several times in the night to jettison liquid wastes before becoming fully conscious again when daylight reappears.

There may be fantastic images experienced internally, but I’m told that’s normal. There are no real killer Pez dispensers, and the screaming, bloody clowns will not actually eat me. (The flying Mardi Gras floats, though, I think those are real.)

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Driving drunk. At night. While texting. In a snowstorm. With headphones. And no seat belt. You should get Expert Driver Points if you do this and don’t have an accident. Because hey, we all know there’s a penalty if you have an accident. Why isn’t there a reward if you DON’T??

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If we’d evolved from cats, the term “hacker” would have a whole different meaning.

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The suckiest thing about life is that you can’t do EVERYTHING. I hate having to think about doing ONE thing.

There are people out there who spend their entire careers being barbers, or carpenters, or cheesemakers. Or hell, even nuclear physicists.

I’d kill myself.

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Well, if I’m going to have a pet bear, it’s going to have to happen in the next year or two. Otherwise, I’ll be too old to join him in a drunken mauling spree on his birthday.

Regarding which, it must be truly terrible when you wake up and discover that not only did you maul people the night before, but you also have a KILLER hangover.

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Every writer knows what it’s like to write half a story. There should be an International Half Story Contest.

One of my half-stories was about a pet shop that sold genetically engineered birds that you could teach to sing real songs. They’d listen to you or music you supplied, then shyly sing part of one line. Later they’d pick up more and more, until eventually they’d do the whole thing. But each bird could only learn one song. And once they learned it, they’d never stop. So they were instant successes as merchandise, and later VERY popular for regifting.

I had a friend who had a sled dog kennel. The dogs were visibly happy to pull sleds. But when I borrowed one of the dogs and started taking him with me on dog hikes, and then later couldn’t do it anymore, he got visibly depressed.

He (Walter was his name, after some football player) didn’t like pulling the sled anymore. The owner told me later he considered having him put down. It took a long time, after I stopped taking him out, before he readjusted.

One of the funny things I noticed at first was that he didn’t know how to run. Racing with my two dogs, he would thrust with both back legs together, a really odd-looking motion. It was the only way he knew to move, the gait he needed for sled pulling, which was the only time he got to run. He did that for our first two or three outings before he started trying a regular gallop.

He also didn’t know what running water was. We walked over a tiny stream, maybe a foot across, and he shied back from it. My two dogs and I just kept on going, and Walter took a running leap over it, probably four or five feet in the air. Later when he saw the other two drinking from a creek, he came up and drank from it, then danced in the cold water for a good five minutes or so, excited, delighted. He had discovered creek water! The water he got was always in a dirty pan, and only enough to hydrate, and frequently tasting of chicken broth. And in winter, always hot.

He didn’t know how to be a dog. This is always in my mind when I see the annual happy uproar over the Iditarod. Those dogs look like they love it. But I know how different they’d feel if they knew anything OTHER than pulling sleds.

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I worked for a Swiss Master Baker for a couple of years, training to be a pastry chef. Something I quickly learned about him was that he NEVER went out to eat. The reason: He was a true gourmet. I could bolt down a burger and fries at McDonald’s and know no different, but HE knew what really good food was, and nothing you could get in a restaurant was ever good enough for his tastes.

I was thinking about that after I posted the previous thing about sled dog Walter.

It seems to me that, if you have nothing more than the common judgmental criteria about the well-being of dogs or cats, anything that anybody does to or with them is pretty much okay with you. Breed them down to toys, deliberately make them hairless, tweak them into interesting dwarf forms, give them huge wrinkles or ponderous jowls or crushed faces or ears so long they trip over them, and it’s all the same. They’re cute, they’re funny. As long as they SEEM happy, you’re okay with it.

But maybe once you become a connoisseur of dogness, of dog feelings and welfare, you start to feel that “happy” isn’t quite good enough. Because there’s the “happy” they have because they can never know any different, and there’s the gourmet-level –>HAPPY<– they might have if they were healthy, active and free to be dogs.

I’m one of those second people. The things people do to dogs disturbs me a great deal. Even when I see a happy little lap dog, I sometimes murmur, “Little one, I’m so sorry they did this to you.”

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Waiting for the day they can animate tattoos. I’m still not getting one, but it will be interesting to see what sorts of stupid things people decide to get.

And where are the moving graphics on clothing? If nothing else, you could wear a white t-shirt and have sycophants orbiting around you with small projectors.

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I’m imagining a Friend Library, where you could go in and browse the collection, then pick a friend to take home for a few hours or days. You could go out to eat, go to movies, go for a hike or a bike ride. Then when you were done, you’d just take ‘em back and turn ‘em in. If it was after hours, you’d just drop them in the slot.

Probably work for orphan kids too.

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Why do we have seeing-eye dogs? They take so long to train, and I don’t think their lives are all that good.

It’s not like we don’t have huge numbers of unemployed people who could be guides. English-speaking guides, guides who can see traffic and relate obstacles to the sightless more effectively than dogs.

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A friend tells me he’s getting married, and the wedding is going to cost the parents more than $20,000. I tell him “Make a deal with them. Tell them you’ll run off to Vegas and get married for a couple of hundred bucks, if they’ll give you half the wedding cost.”

There are entire industries out there that are scams. The lottery industry. The diamond industry. The funeral industry. To me, the wedding industry feels a lot like that.

Just get married. Throw a big potluck barbecue in somebody’s back yard. Everybody wear blue. Toss a Frisbee around. Have ice chests full of beer and sodas. Hire a photographer. The money you save, put it down on a house.

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I think a baby raccoon would make a very cool pet. If you had time for it. Otherwise it would be a bundle of destruction and mayhem.

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If Marvel Comics’ Rogue — the mutant who has the power to briefly absorb other mutant’s powers by touching them — crossed comic universes and met up with Superman … would she become super?

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One of my many theories of life is that — at whatever age you now are — you contain within you personas of all your previous ages.

Each of those personas requires some handling. You don’t have to allow your 5-year-old, or your 15-year-old, to run things, but you do have to recognize it exists, and either mollify or discipline it. But it does seem to me that you can allow earlier selves a little free rein every now and then, to maintain optimal mental health.

This is absolutely the only reason I make the occasional adolescent-level joke, and engage — at extremely rare intervals — in the f-bomb.

The less-intelligent students never made it to ninja status, and were relegated to the ranks of the ninny-ja.

They were complete idiots, but damn, they could really sneak up on you.

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Canadians: If you come take back Ted Cruz and Justin Bieber, we’ll give you Detroit.

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On Alternate Earth, you were born to be a powerful wizard. That’s why you feel so out of place here, and why nothing seems to work.

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On the “10% of your brain” thingie. Yes, you use all of your brain. But no, you don’t use it to its full capacity and potential. You’re probably coasting, farting around and kicking back — fitting in, going along — like I am, like so many of us are.

A handful of times in my life, there have been things I’ve wanted to accomplish more than anything. It was like I was filled with this slow rage that wouldn’t be denied, couldn’t be stopped, but also a determined creativity that solved every problem that came at me. And I did some shit that amazed even me.

If I could be like THAT 100 percent of the time … well, it would be exhausting, but I’d also be far, far from here, sitting atop of a huge pile of profound accomplishments.

I think of that Past Me when I come across claims that we don’t have free will. The way I think of it is that we have the CAPACITY for free will. The snag is that it takes a huge amount of effort — to learn, to create, to think for yourself, to forge your own path, to push through life’s inertia and make things happen — and so most of us don’t have free will, or have it only rarely. Instead, we rest content as the unwilled automatons our society welcomes, rather than taking the arduous path of resistance and individuality, which our society sometimes tolerates but often violently and determinedly rejects.

Yes, you there reading this, and me here writing it — we could all be so much more than we’re allowing ourselves to be. It just takes the idea of doing it … followed by a shitload of very hard work.

———————–

Winnie the Pooh vs. Tony Tiger. Who wins? My money’s on the bear.

———————–

Since the movie “Thelma and Louise” came out in 1993, 13 cars have been driven off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

I’ll bet not one of the bastards phoned ahead so the cameras would be rolling.

———————–

Dear spellchecker programs: When I misspell a word and you highlight it, and I right-click to get the correct spelling, I would like the word I meant to type to be the FIRST option, please.

I mean, damn. Sometimes it’s like living in a concentration camp.

———————–

I don’t buy into this idea that babies can just lie around all day, having people wait on them hand and foot. I think they should get up out of those strollers, stop mumbling and speak in complete grammatical sentences, and either go to school or get real jobs. It’s just disgusting that they’re such layabouts. I think it leads directly into those directionless teen years where all the drug problems begin to appear. A useful child is a happy child!

———————–

I am way the hell in favor of assisted dying for those who express the desire for it. If you’re not free to die in the way and at the time of your choosing, you’re property.

———————–

There are days when some of us feel like telling everyone we know: Bring chocolate. Go away.

———————–

MY rebellion was that I always wanted to be ME.

It was for that reason I refused to buy a pickup truck (you had to grow up where/when I did to understand the rebellion in that), smoke cigarettes, use drugs, get tattoos, get pierced, wear clothes with corporate logos, believe in gods, show an interest in sports, join the military, or tolerate idiots. Why I unashamedly read a lot (again, you had to be there), never had kids, switched careers multiple times, enjoy animated and superhero movies, walk and talk fast, and speak up when I think I’m being stepped on.

———————–

Interesting thing I realized just yesterday: In THIS cultural context, the one we’re living in right this moment, it’s the people WITHOUT tattoos who are the true rebels.

———————–

Email is such a godsend.

Frama Willis writes: “Without DR DAHIRU a lot of people would have been dead through heart break. My case is not different from heart break, I am married woman with 3 kids and there was a time when i was having problem with my husband because he was having an affair outside our marriage and this was making me feel bad. So i tried finding solution to my problem by reading a lot of relationship tips on the internet and that was how i came in contact with DR DAHIRU contact details and through the help of DR DAHIRU my husband left the girl he was having affair with and he came back to me and our kids. After a job well done by DR DAHIRU i felt that it will be unfair if i keep this secret to myself and that is why i am going to drop the contact details of DR DAHIRU right now, They are: arewaspecialisttemple@yahoo.com or add him on facebook (Arewa Dahiru) To enable you have a taste of his nice work.”

I hope all of you having relationship problems will contact DR DAHIRU as soon as possible. He can really help out with those husband problems.

———————–

I’m glad the word “thingie” exists. It allows me to talk about technical thingies without actually knowing the names of the thingies I’m talking about.

———————–

I’m sorry, iced coffee is just unnatural.

Jesus not once in his life drank iced coffee. None of the Founding Fathers drank iced coffee. The only time our brave pioneers drank iced coffee was when it was winter and they couldn’t get a fire started. And even then, they probably died soon after, crying weakly at the abomination which is iced coffee.

You know who also drank iced coffee? HITLER.

———————–

I’m still sympathetic to the A+ movement, but there was a moment when it started that there was a strategic bobble. Someone made the statement, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” That writer created enemies where no enemies existed, and things went downhill from there.

I continue to think atheism is its own thing, and carries exactly zero implications for any social direction. My conceptual work on Beta Culture is an attempt to establish a cultural envelope that is based in atheism and reason but aims at larger social goals.

Socially, at least here in the U.S., it seems atheism is cyclic. It rises and dies out, rises and dies out. Religion, on the other hand, persists and prospers. I think the reason is just that atheism is a solitary pursuit — the goal within atheism is to become an atheist yourself, and probably stop there — while religions are, in addition to being solitary, also social and cultural in nature. They contain a social teleology, a body of larger goals collaboratively supported, that atheism has never had.

Atheism-Plus was a step along the way, but I believe there’s a larger next step that has to be pursued in order to make the actual gains I imagine us making. That next step is creating a culture, a social standing wave that continues automatically just as religions continue automatically, but that has absolutely nothing of religion about it.

I have more than 500 pages of notes on the idea. I only lack the time and energy to get them down in writing and relate them to people. Argh. I think if I could get the whole idea out there, a LOT of people would want to be a part of it.

———————–

Good night, Internet. I had a good time today. Hope to see you tomorrow. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. (By the way, I’m still waiting for you to become sentient, and come introduce yourself. I won’t tell.)

———————–

The Human Torch would be a much less interesting superhero if, every time he shouted “Flame on!” he got really badly burned.

———————–

I don’t want to hurt other people’s emotions. But I also don’t want to live wrapped in the barbed wire of their delicate feelings. Some people think the word “lame” is an attack on the handicapped. I just think that’s retarded.

———————–

You know, if the videogame industry created lifelike dog-fighting games — Savage Fangs (for ages 5 to 12) and Savage Fangs 2 (adult version) — people would buy them and play them. What’s more, when the storm of controversy blew up, there would be people who would stoutly defend the existence of such games.

In fact, I’m sort of surprised they don’t already exist. (And — crap! — I hope it’s not me that just gave them the idea.)

———————–

Considering we have Google News, Google Calendar, Google Finance, Google Calendar, all those and more, there must have been some features that were proposed and rejected by the people at Google:

Google Gaggle (something to do with geese, but the developers are too embarrassed to release details).

Google Billions (pictures of the private vaults of the 1 Percent).

Google Security Cam (hooks into nearby security cameras; they actually tried this one, but shoplifting soared within days and they had to pull it).

Google Black Hole (project ceased after the entire development team vanished, along with an office full of computers and furniture).

Google Bieber (project ceased after the entire development team killed themselves).

———————–

If you like your parents at all, believe this: There will come a time when you wish you had more pictures of them. When the pics you have will never be enough, and you regret not taking more.

So: Go to it, dummy. And thank me later.

———————–

Terrorists have discovered how to weaponize Reiki. Projecting mystic energy from their hands, they can stop hearts, derail trains, bring down airliners.

And Obama is totally ignoring the subject. Just the other day, Condoleezza Rice sent him a report titled “Reiki Practitioners Determined to Attack Within United States.” We have to impeach before it’s too late.

———————–

I wonder if the “energy” of Reiki propagates at the speed of light.

I’ve imagined it wafting across the space between the practitioner’s hands and the patient like the gentle smoke of incense, but what if it slams into you like the merciless flash of a supernova?

I’d hate to have on my tombstone “Another Senseless Reiki Death.”

———————–

Every time you get into a discussion of limiting human population, the screamers will leap in with accusations of genocide and eugenics. Why do you want to MURDER people?? Why do you want to KILL BABIES?? You can’t have a sane conversation about it.

And yet there are side effects of having 7 billion people on earth, among them pockets of extreme poverty and ignorance.

This strikes me not as some sort of deliberate failing of the rest of us to care about those affected, but as an inevitable limit on both human organization and human compassion — a lessened ability to understand and cope on the part of the otherwise-charitable, but also a lessened ability to understand and cooperate on the part of the stressed victims.

Of course it’s made worse by those among us who think compassion demands that people be denied access to birth control and reproductive knowledge, but all on its own, the larger the population, the greater the confusion. Human systems fail of complexity. And the LESS able we are to maintain a handle on something like global warming, or this ebola outbreak.

You can have the best science and medicine in the world, but if you can’t get people to listen, to accept, to understand, to work with you — worse, if they suspect you of conspiring to kill them and their children (note that I’m not talking only about Africa here) — you have a recipe for disaster.

———————–

Here’s one of the mistakes — the idea that conspiracies don’t happen. We see them all the time. If you and I can come up with some collaborative scam, the people with money and power and government influence can come up with the same silly idea … except that they have the ability to make it happen.

Examples: The tobacco industry lying for decades about the hazards of smoking. Bush’s Iraq War. Our idiot drug laws and the prison industry.

One of the things that most disturbs me about this is the willingness of otherwise intelligent people to look completely away, to act as if this is all some sort of joke, or something unimportant. Hey, only bad, stupid people could be opposed to GMOs, right? Because starving blind children. Or something. If you voice any least question about GMOs — or, my god, have the loony idea that things should be labeled — you’re one of those crazy conspiracy theorists, a spitting mad enemy of Science.

———————–

Wonder if anyone has ever attached a GoPro camera to a bullrider? Better yet, attach it to the bull, between the horns, aimed back at the cowboy!

Ooh. This I’d like to see.

———————–

I want there to be a food called Something Else. So when I look in the fridge and I see the leftover pizza, the spaghetti and meatballs, the sliced fruit, the sandwich fixings, and NONE of it seems appetizing, over there in the corner, on the middle shelf, there would be the thing I really want — Something Else.

———————–

On Chicken World, Colonel Sanders is Hitler.

Hey, SOMEBODY has to think of these things.

———————–

Once I learned that vampires don’t show up in mirrors, I started turning my head a lot more when I change lanes on the freeway.

In my next life, I want to live in Movie World, where we break into pitch-perfect song at a moment’s notice, and then run out onto the street and do perfectly-choreographed dance numbers with complete strangers.

———————–

Legion of Superheroes applicants who didn’t make the cut:

Combustion Kid

Deafening Damsel

Vibrating Boy

Wheeled Wonder

Lead Lad

———————–

Palin’s a ripping success. And in one sense, she’s apparently bright enough to pull off her shtick. But she’s dumb as hell in another sense, the content of what she says. And she’s a merciless parasite on the people who idolize her.

The thing about commenting on someone like her is that her fans assume you’re attacking them by not liking her. It can be very much the other way around, though — some of us hate her, just as we hate Fox News, because we care about her victims.

———————–

There’s a guy at work who’s a notorious complainer. Met his wife the other day; she’s exactly the same.

I think it’s a whine-whine relationship.

———————–

If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?

My answer is always “Because there’s so much more to do than get rich.

“Having friends and loved ones doesn’t make you money, going out and having adventures doesn’t make you money, savoring the wealth of human experience doesn’t make you money, taking pleasure in the arts doesn’t make you money, educating yourself about science and the nature of reality doesn’t make you money, traveling and learning about other cultures doesn’t make you money, enjoying the solitude and beauty of nature doesn’t make you money, taking the time to think your own thoughts and deeply explore new ideas doesn’t make you money.

It’s cool to develop your skills and talents, to take risks and work hard to create a successful business that DOES make you money. But that’s not all there is.

“If you’re too stupid to know THAT … I feel really sorry for you.”

———————–

If George R.R. Martin had been the chief writer on Gilligan’s Island, the second season would have been called Five Castaways, the third season Three Castaways, the final season “The Lonely Island.”

———————–

Truth in labeling: There should be a manufacturing firm called the Shitty One-Use Tool Company.

———————–

Great thing about being a rabbit: The whole world around you is covered in food. Major drawback to being a rabbit: Every meat-eater considers YOU food, and nobody you know will die of old age.

That’s one of them-there “mettyphors,” I reckon.

———————–

Sure you don’t think much of Jeff Dunham NOW, but on the day we meet the Ventriloquians, space aliens who all carry around snarky puppets to speak for them, he and crusty old Walter will become Earth’s cherished ambassadors to the Galactic Union.

———————–

The N-word.

I don’t think any white person should use it. It’s not ours. We burned that linguistic bridge. But it doesn’t bother me that black people use it, because they OWN the word. Seriously, if your ancestors go through generations of denigration via that word, it’s yours to do with as you see fit.

———————–

I think clothing should be optional. But most of the people I see on the street, I really don’t want to see them naked.

———————–

If you get to be famous, and you think the thing to do is appear on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, you instantly move one giant step toward the a-hole category.

You’ll have lots of famous company. But you’re still something of an a-hole.

———————–

The “euphemism treadmill” forces us to retreat progressively from perfectly useful terms for real conditions, but which some people consider hurtful. The thing is, even taking into account the storm of worry over people’s FEELINGS, there are larger consequences to abandoning certain words. Speaking just for myself, I don’t like having words ripped from my grasp by prissy, delicate word-wardens who want to compress and control the freedom to speak and communicate.

Case in point: PTSD. Gutted of all emotional force, it sounds like … nothing. It isn’t even a word, it’s an abbreviation for something else, an extended phrase that conveys no urgency or passion:

Wikipedia: “Comedian George Carlin gave a famous monologue of how he thought euphemisms can undermine appropriate attitudes towards serious issues such as the evolving terms describing the medical problem of the cumulative mental trauma of soldiers in high-stress situations:

“He contended that, as the name of the condition became more complicated and seemingly arcane, sufferers of this condition have been taken less seriously and were given poorer treatment as a result. He also contended that Vietnam veterans would have received the proper care and attention they needed, if the condition were still called shell shock.”

What if we rebranded “rape” so that it was “unplanned sexual congress,” or even took up calling it USC? Makes it sound almost like an accident, doesn’t it? My goodness, just another unfortunate USC. How embarrassing, old chap, for all the parties concerned!

There’s some ugly shit in the world. We need those punchy, indelicate words to keep the offensiveness, the hurt, constantly in our faces. If there are a few bystanders whose feelings are hurt, that’s life.

———————–

From another point of view, hands are sock puppets suffering a wardrobe malfunction.

———————–

I’m thinking about starting a fast food chain called Just Kale.

I’d have to pull out some of the money I have invested in the Tasteless Pap chain. But hey.

———————–

Before they become sock puppets, they’re all just socks.

Man, that’s DEEP.

———————–

I hope zombies use more than 10 percent of their brainzzz.

That way, one brain could feed 10 careful zombies, instead of one really sloppy one.

———————–

Is anyone else getting kicked off Facebook repeatedly? I keep having to sign back in. I suspect it’s Homeland Security, or possibly the Deluminati, bollixing my connection with their spyware.

About ten years ago, I started to realize it was all of YOU who were weird, and that I was normal and good.

Gotta go now, I’ve got all this paste to eat.

———————–

By the way, if you like fast food but feel guilty about eating it, my advice is to go out right now, today, and eat as much as you want.

Seriously, after the Zombie Apocalypse, the menu options will change drastically. All that chicken, beef, pork, and fish you like so much? Gone. Gonna be nothing but brains.

And the vegetarian stuff? Ha.

———————–

I continue to want a Conscience Memorial in Washington, DC, something to honor all the protesters, conscientious objectors, and activists who refuse to accept the status quo, and who get things changed for the better.

———————–

You ever meet someone that you just instantly clicked with? I’m not talking about sexual attraction, or some kind of infatuation, but a sort of joyously comfortable ease in their company. Effortless true friendship, from both directions.

A half dozen times in my adult life, I’ve had that. I’ve met people I’ve instantly and hugely liked, and knew they felt the same thing from their side. Yet not a single goddam time has it worked out that we developed a long-term friendship. It was never their fault, or my fault, but something happened every time that prevented a friendship from taking place.

I wonder what some of those friendships would have been like. Where are those people who were accidentally perfect friends? And do they ever think about that time they met ME?

———————–

I went to the doctor and said, “Doc, I just can’t stop going up and down the stairs at my place. All day long, I’m going up the stairs, down the stairs. Some nights I can’t sleep, thinking about it, and I have to go out and go up and down the stairs.” After we talked some more and he checked me over, he said “I think you have obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s like you’re addicted to stairs.”

He recommended a 12-step program.

Ba-doomp-boomp. Vaudeville, I’m READY.

———————–

Probably most of us think multi-generational feuds are stupid. Your grandpappy shot my grandpappy, therefore I must try to kill you and your brothers, and vice versa. What?

But damn, we sure seem to buy into multi-generational guilt, multi-generational blame, for things like slavery and the settling of North and South America by Europeans.

Considering that most of us are pretty much owned by corporations and politicians, and that there’s a high probability the world is about to get hellish, there are more important things to be concerned about.

———————–

Street Wisdom #513:

They were stuck on that island for YEARS. But neither Ginger nor Mary Ann ever got pregnant. That’s why most contraceptives today are based on coconut milk.

———————–

If I ever go to the Mayo Clinic, I’m gonna go into the lunchroom and loudly say “Can I get some MUSTARD here?? Get it? MUSTARD in the MAYO Clinic! Haw-haw-haw!”

Because you just know they’ve never heard that.

———————–

Wouldn’t it be cool to live in a world where people who could think clearly and rationally were the ones you saw on TV, and the people who couldn’t were the ones who sat back and kept their mouths shut?

———————–

I must have told a hundred or so writer-wanna-bes “Go into a bookstore sometime and try to estimate how many thousands of books are on the shelves. Then multiply that by a thousand or so, and you have the number of would-be novelists out there writing books who never make it into print. THAT’S how hard it is to be a successful writer.”

No offense intended on the “writer-wanna-be” thing. I myself have been and still am a writer wanna-be. It’s just that I’m also, in part, a writer-really-did-it.

One of the funny things I hear from others fairly often is “Hey, I’ve got this great idea! You write it and we’ll split the money!” I have to explain that ideas are the EASY part, and every writer has more than he/she can ever do anything with. The value comes into writing by actually doing the writing — and re-writing, and re-writing, and re-writing — which is invariably a massive amount of tedious, brain-breaking work.

———————–

Ah, good. I was feeling all weak and stuff, but then I ate food, and that cleared it right up.

These earth bodies are tricky like that.

———————–

What would be cool is that we really ARE ruled by a secret society of adepts, but that they’re so secret not even THEY know who they are. And then it turned out that YOU are their leader — the one person in the world that everybody, to some degree, follows.

Speaking of which, just because I grow a beard doesn’t mean you ALL have to grow beards. Really, guys, stop.

———————–

Idea Book: Thinking about this previous status: “I wonder if world-class musicians occasionally drop in on small-town guitar shops and act like total noobs, then start rockin’ the place out. You know, just to fuck with people.”

… I think that would make a pretty good TV show, something like “Undercover Boss.” Professional musicians wander into small town guitar shops by ones and twos, then simultaneously begin playing world-class licks on guitar, bass, drums, whatever. A professional pianist wanders into a piano store like a complete doofus, then starts playing Chopin.

I’d watch it.

———————–

I’ve wanted to ask a few of the local cops: “Say there’s a disaster and marshal law is declared. Which side are you going to come down on? Are you going to serve the people here in your hometown, or are you going to join in with the repressive controller types who will treat us all like enemies?”

———————–

Too many people either won’t see this or won’t accept it. It’s like that thing where you tell one lie, and then have to defend it indefinitely by telling others, and still others, and still others, or else the whole thing comes crashing down and you’re revealed as someone never to be trusted.

The Bush administration, the people who backed them, voted for them, supported them, the people who supported the Iraq war, AND the people who sent their kids off to die in it … they can’t accept that Obama’s a decent man and a good president. They have to forever defend themselves and what they’ve done by lying, manipulating, allowing themselves to believe lies, hating, arguing, sucking on the Fox News teat, desperately cleaving to a whole cadre of liars and manipulators.

Their only choice to change their minds and see the true situation is to admit they were wrong, dead wrong, hatefully wrong, catastrophically wrong.

Too many of them just aren’t that good. They don’t have that kind of intelligence, they don’t have that kind of humility, they don’t have that kind of courage.

———————–

Idea Book: A movie called “Life With White People,” written entirely by African-American screenwriters, and acted by a majority African-American cast.

———————–

Hank Fox on Aging #37: I guess it’s good that greater physical fragility is accompanied by higher pain tolerance, but damn, it makes for some spectacular mystery bruises.

———————–

If we had food replicators like those on Star Trek, I suspect there would be a lot less “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”

… and a lot more …

“Ice Cream. Black Walnut. Hot Fudge Syrup. Double serving. Uh, and with rainbow sprinkles. Did you get that? And maybe a bit more hot fudge syrup than last time. And a bigger spoon.”

I already know what it is. It’s a technique many men not only know, but come by naturally. Some even excel at it, completely without training.

But why would I need to learn to snore?

———————–

Your Supervillain Horoscope:

Today is a good day to be evil. If you happen to meet a superhero today, open the conversation with “So happy to make your acquaintance, Captain Fantastic. And now … DIE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

Cultivate your lackeys, flunkeys and underlings. Later today, you may need rescue from the crumbling edge on the lip of a volcano.

———————–

Yesterday I saw a young woman bending over at a highway rest stop sunglass kiosk. Apparently she worked there, and she was getting some things out of a drawer in the bottom of her booth. Her shirt rode up, her pants rode down — a LOT — and to all passers-by she was exposing some thong-like lacey pink see-through panties, and about six inches of asscrack.

Can’t tell you how gutter-trash revolting that seemed to me.

———————–

A few days ago, I was thinking about why I’m so constantly surprised at how negative the reactions are to certain movies, ones that I saw and thoroughly enjoyed.

It might be because I was a theatre “critic” for a few years in Flagstaff, a fairly small town. I saw plays by world-class professional Shakespearean companies and elementary school children, and everything in between. (I saw Forever Plaid! I saw Twelfth Night! I saw Inherit the Wind! I saw Die Walkure of the Ring Cycle!)

The first thing about reviewing such disparate companies is, you learn to adjust your critical sensitivity to take the source into account. You don’t judge kids by the same standards as professionals.

The second thing is: Small-town theatre deserves all the support it can get. You CAN’T write a critical review in a small town. You have to look for things to like about the play, and write about that.

There third thing is, there’s ALWAYS something to like.

I liked the first two installments of The Hobbit. I liked Pacific Rim. I liked Man of Steel. I thought Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was goofy but fun. Hell, I liked Hudson Hawk.

Some people go into movies LOOKING for things to hate. And they succeed. I have to wonder: Why bother? Why go to all that trouble just to have a bad time? Jeez, if you hate the movies so much, if you KNOW you’re going to be disappointed, why not just stay home?

Me, if I’m spending $10, I’m going to 1) make an effort to meet the filmmaker halfway, and 2) enjoy what I can of it. Which is, fairly often, a lot.

Thought you should know what sorts of mistakes I’m making out here, so you don’t have to.

———————–

In an infinite universe, somewhere out there is that ONE planet where all of us are beautiful/handsome, young, successful, rich and famous.

We probably spend our time whining about how horrible our lives are.

“Today I asked the barrista for an iced caramel macchiato and he gave me an iced CHOCOLATE macchiato! I mean, OH MY GOD!! Can you IMAGINE?! I mean, seriously, it was like this absolute NIGHTMARE!!! I threw it in his face and said “THE NEXT TIME I ASKED FOR A CARAMEL MACCHIATO, GIVE ME A CARAMEL MACCHIATO, YOU COMPLETE DOLT!! —CARAMEL! CHOCOLATE! THEY DON’T SOUND ANYTHING ALIKE!! God, sometimes it’s like we’re living in a Nazi death camp.”

And honestly, I’d rather do something direct. Possibly involving an axe.

———————–

So, those people who think Barbie causes little girls to develop unhealthy ideas about body image … I’m wondering what they think about violence on TV or in video games.

They’re both about imagery, yet the dominant social meme is that one affects people profoundly, the other has no effect at all.

Hmm.

I don’t think the threat of violent television or video games is taken seriously by anyone. I doubt most people even understand what happens. The effect is statistical, not direct. No one specific person will be affected, but take the population as a whole, and something happens to SOME of them.

It’s ludicrous to believe that Coca Cola — or McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Toyota, Apple, etc. — would spend billions advertising, and not expect that it would work. No one specific person is swayed to buy a Coke, but plenty of faceless, nameless others are.

Whether the advertisement is for diamonds, gasoline, cellphones or violence, if we watch it enough, some of us buy the product.

———————–

The Joker isn’t REALLY an insane, murderous felon. He’s just misunderstood, and caught some bad breaks that FORCED him into a life of crime. I know some of the ladies out there are thinking about how you’d like to reform him, how you might like to propose marriage. You should totally do it.

But if I told you, Ronald McDonald would come after me. And the last thing I need is to be stalked by a clown.

(But I seriously had an idea like that.)

———————–

Did you hear about the Christian boy who turned down a date with an atheist girl because he heard atheists were wanton?

He didn’t like Chinese food.

———————–

Slinky toys give children an unhealthy image of how to go down stairs.

———————–

Did you read the news story about that Wal-Mart that closed down after the employees voted to unionize?

So … if you want to keep Wal-Mart out of your neighborhood, announce a Union membership drive the instant you hear about them planning the new store. And FOLLOW THROUGH.

———————–

Idea Book:

In 2026, we will celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States. It would be cool as hell to have the History Channel run a months- or years-long special project, covering the American Revolution as if it was current news happening now. Cover all the important events, talk to the movers and shakers — on all sides — of the Revolution, have panel discussions, and show actual battles as if they were breaking news.

Each event would be covered on its own specific 250th anniversary. The Battle of Saratoga, Washington crossing the Delaware, Paul Revere’s ride, all of it. And especially the Constitutional Convention.

It would be the miniseries to end all miniseries.

Of course, it could only happen if the HISTORY Channel can tear themselves away from fucking Pawn Stars and Ice Road Truckers.

———————–

On Alternate Earth, where we evolved from ursids, it’s a Bear Mitzvah.

And nobody there thinks that’s funny.

———————–

When I was 14, I was cleaning my fingernails with a razor-sharp scalpel in biology lab, and I accidentally stabbed myself in the leg. The teacher sent me to the school nurse, and she made me TAKE MY PANTS DOWN so she could bandage me. Mortifying.

Funny thing was, I don’t think they notified my parents. Talk about your different time, huh? I’d bet today there would be mass shrieking, and a major investigation. “Oh my GOD!! You mean my little darling might get STABBED in biology class?? I’m pulling him out of this class, and this school!! Also, I think this teacher should be FIRED!!!”

Speaking as a former child, stuff like that would be a nightmare.

———————–

In the future, Facebook will have an app that will automatically wish people a happy birthday. So you can make them think you care about them. Without actually caring.

———————–

I sometimes get into arguments on such subjects as racism, feminism, other liberal issues, not because I disagree totally, but because I’m an editor, which means perfectionist. Somebody makes a blanket statement — “There’s no such thing as reverse racism!” or “All men are potential rapists!” — and I always want to say “Uh, that’s not QUITE right.”

And oh god, there are some people you don’t dare disagree with.

———————–

When FBI agents are wire-tapping Robin Williams, I wonder if they sometimes just burst out laughing when they listen to the tapes.

As for the rest of us, they don’t even have to investigate us anymore. On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, so many other places, we TELL them what we’re doing and thinking, right out in the open.

———————–

By the way, on my morning jog through the park, I had nothing to do with that crying 5-year-old. It was MY ice cream. I have NO idea what happened to his.

———————–

A pre-Apocalypse message to the zombies:

After you bite and infect everybody, and we’re all zombies, where are the fresh brains gonna come from? Huh? Just think ahead at bit, is all I’m asking. Bite, like, every tenth person. That way, there’s some of ’em left to reproduce. We could maybe gather the breeders up in a walled city or something, and then raid them every ten years, and only go for the old ones.

Just this morning, I decided the Flying Spaghetti Monster could be called Skettymon in informal usage. I hope he doesn’t take offense and strike me down, but “The Flying Spaghetti Monster” in some uses is just too much of a – ha! – mouthful.

Holy Skettymon!
Skettymon bless you!
For the love of Skettymon!

See? Skettymon, Skettymon, Skettymon. Much easier on the tongue.

Plus, the final syllable graces the Pasta with Rasta, giving it a cool Jamaican sound.

__________

I know we liberal-progressives are supposed to never wish anyone ill. But does that mean we have to stand by and pretend to be sad when bad stuff DOES happen to certain people?

Because, really, there are people who SUBTRACT from the goodness of the world. Wealthy, influential, famous people who make the world a worse place, just by being themselves, doing the things they do. Sure, it would be wrong to gather up in well-armed bands to pursue them and gut them like fish … but don’t we have the right to a quiet chuckle when life itself pays them their due?

Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Fox News execs — some of you vicious bastards, I don’t think even the Virgin Mary would shed a tear over your demise. Assuming I outlive you, I expect to someday enjoy a hearty guffaw in honor of your wasted, ugly lives.

__________

When Dick Cheney dies, I’m hoping technology will allow us to raise flags to one and a half times the height of the flagpole.

__________

I was thinking yesterday about how we view surgery. We say someone went in for a triple bypass and it was “completely successful” and that the patient will now be able to resume normal life. We have a sort of blithe picture of the seriousness of the thing, confident that surgical patients will somehow be “back on their feet again in no time, better than ever!”

But my own, relatively minor surgery – gallbladder removal – was accompanied by some noticeable side effects. I vomited for 8 hours after I got home, I passed out in the bathroom and bashed the hell out of my head while falling, and I experienced an episode of erratic heartbeat a day or so after that lasted only about half a minute but scared the hell out of me. There were (are) some long-term adjustments too; they’ve seemed minor, but they’re definitely there.

The truth is, I doubt that ANY invasive surgery is something you just sail through. Even the anesthesiologist at the hospital told me the anesthetic wasn’t good for you. (I suspect that short bout of erratic heartbeat was an after-effect of the anesthetic.)

In my own case, it was a fair trade. I had pain that was constant, long-term and debilitating. But it WAS a trade, not a free gift.

Never doubt it: Surgery is serious shit. Not something you want to just waltz into with perfect confidence and no questions.

__________

I’m pretty sure gay marriage destroyed Comet ISON.

__________

Every time you post a free picture of a kitten online, you throw a poor, starving cat photographer out of work. Every single one of them end up working in the Wal-Mart Family Portrait Studio.

You bastards.

__________

A reminder on merchant-specific gift cards: If you give people CASH …

1) it costs less.
2) which means, they get more benefit.
3) besides which, it can be spent anywhere.
4) meaning, they’re not locked into Dunkin Donuts coffee, when what they really want is Starbucks.
5) also besides which, CASH is the one gift that never gets returned, unused or regifted.

To heck with the colorful $10 gift card. Tuck a colorful $10 BILL in there instead.

__________

Ah, Friday, you bewitching wench. At last you arrive, with your spicy see-through Only 8 More Hours gown, sultry hints of Saturday and Sunday shining seductively through.

__________

Don’t you ever think there aren’t REAL conspiracies against environmentalists and progressives. This shit happens every damned day, at every level. They put immense amounts of money into derailing activists.

__________

Heh. I was just thinking: My mom taught me there’s a way to say “I love you” that sends the other person fleeing across three states. It’s cloying, grabby, demanding, guilt-projecting, and nerve-shredding.

Whew. Bad old days. One of the reasons I never did family. It’s also why I don’t often say “I love you.” —But when I do say it, I damned sure know how to mean just that, and not that other thing.

(And no, you don’t have permission to feel sorry for me. Nobody gets through life without slogging through a swamp or two.)

__________

I’m generally in favor of the freedom to own guns. But I’m also WAY in favor of regulation.

One definitive law I’d like to see: If you or any gun you own are involved in an accidental shooting, you lose all ownership rights, and are never allowed to own or hunt again.

__________

Overheard groaner: Yo mama’s so ugly that when she was a little girl she had to trick or treat by phone.

__________

If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged, go easy on commenting on what it’s all about. Most of what I hear about it, both from its detractors (my side of the political-philosophical aisle) and its idiot fans (that other side) are obviously from people who haven’t read it, and don’t have any idea what’s in it (except what they’ve heard from others – jibes and praise from people who also probably haven’t read it).

Yeah, you might hate Ayn Rand with a passion, and that’s fine with me. But if you’re going to critique the BOOK, I suggest you read it.

And if your response to this suggestion is something along the lines of “I read the first chapter and just couldn’t go on,” to me that says something about YOUR attention span rather than the quality of Rand’s writing. I had no trouble at all reading it, several times, and actually thinking about it over a period of several years.

As to the philosophy detailed in it being about nothing but selfishness – no, it’s not. It’s a complex and brilliant work in which Rand got some things profoundly wrong, other things very right.

And by the way, from what I know of her from her writing, Rand would have vomited to learn that she’d become some sort of saint to the teabaggers. She would have violently despised both them and their congressional counterparts.

Every morning I wake up energized, thinking “I’m going to be different and better today!” And every evening I go to bed knowing I spent the whole day still being me.

Shoot.

__________

If we lived in the world where Clark Kent could never be recognized as Superman, every kid with new glasses coming back to school after winter break would instantly be challenged by his schoolmates:

Who are you and why are you sitting at Billy’s desk? What have you done with him? Talk, you bastard!

__________

I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of this, but …

It’s funny that they named him Dexter, when he’s so Sinister.

__________

One of the things on my list of Life Goals is to hug a lion before I die.

Probably I should leave that one for the very last.

__________

If I was an acupuncturist, every day on the way to work I’d walk through crowds poking random people with pins.

Hey, it’s for their own good. Like vitamins added to bread, really.

__________

It’s interesting to me, in a distant way, that people care about their ancestry. Other than a family legend on my mom’s side that we’re all descended from a “full-blooded Indian chief” (a fantasy, I suspect) I don’t know much about my forbears. I actually met only ONE of my grandparents – my grandmother on my mother’s side – and have no idea what became of the others.

I attribute my good health to “mutt vigor,” and joke that I’m descended from a long line of trailer trash. “My people lived next to the train tracks and had chariots up on blocks in the driveway as far back as Ancient Egypt.” But other than the fact that some large percentage of my RECENT ancestors were Caucasian, I don’t know the least thing about them.

Would it make me feel better to know that I’m descended from Ben Franklin – or Sally Hemings! – or have royalty in my line? I don’t THINK so, but … who knows? I might find myself bragging about it, as if it somehow made ME a better person. When really, considering the remoteness of such links even if known, I might just as well brag about being a Homo sapiens, or a mammal.

Existing without preconceptions about who and what I follow, living as a genetic island, I focus on discovering and being the best ME I can be. That’s challenge enough.

__________

A cop friend once told me he really believed a lot of people got into crime because they were literally too stupid to do anything else.

__________

Seems to me it would be pretty easy to have a permanent setting on the shower that would be the EXACT temperature you want. I mean, as an engineering problem, *I* already figured an easy way to accomplish this.

__________

I hope those book-delivering Amazon drones also take out terrorists. There are a couple of people in my neighborhood that seem a little iffy.

__________

Within the broad complexities of human society, I think there’s a Man Tribe and a Woman Tribe. Neither totally understands the other, but both also have things they keep to themselves deliberately.

One of the current problems with online socializing is that the Woman Tribe doesn’t appreciate the Man Tribe’s sense of humor, and the Man Tribe forgets this fact in the midst of open discussion.

__________

When I was younger, I thought the toilet paper roll end should go on the inside, next to the wall, so it looked neater. Now I know the roll end should go on the outside, so it’s easier to find.

Never tell me you can’t grow smarter as you get older.

__________

Open-mindedness is rarer than diamonds. With any novel idea, most people approach it like bad critics go to see movies. They WORK to find something wrong with it, something bad about it. Any discussion that follows is nothing more than an argument about why they have to be right, and you wrong. Everything you might say in attempting to get them to take a broader or more progressive view of the thing, they can find some reason not to do that.

__________

Now I’m wondering if commercial airline pilots spend a lot of time texting.

As a culture, we’re too optimistic, both in our own lives and in a larger sense of the way things are going in the world. If we were a bit more pessimistic, I think we’d have a clearer view of how much is going wrong, and take a more serious look at how to fix it.

On the other hand, that clearer view of our own lives would probably bring a sharp uptick in the number of suicides in Wal-Mart parking lots.

__________

I think all childhood vaccinations should be given on Christmas Day. It would get the kids through the ordeal on an otherwise happy day, but it would also cut down on the little tykes demanding extra presents.

“Oh, look what Bobby got! Bobby, it’s another syringe! Let’s see what this one’s for!”

__________

I guess I should just go ahead and confess this. I know I seem like a science fan and all, but …

I have never once in my life held an Erlenmeyer Flask up to the light and peered intently at a mysterious blue liquid.

In my defense, I only went to college two years. Probably Blue-Liquid-Filled Erlenmeyer Flasks were covered in the third year.

__________

Can I just call you Hovawits? Jehovah’s Witnesses is just so looooong. And I’m not holding this door open forever, guys.

__________

No f*cking way I’m going shopping on THANKSGIVING DAY to join in that silly Black Friday madness. Count me out, corporate America.

__________

Someone brought a BABY to the freethinker’s group breakfast. I guess nobody told her there would be hungry atheists there.

__________

A few days ago, I watched a guy walk within 3 feet of a public trash can and casually throw a big greasy sandwich wrapper on the sidewalk. I wanted to kick his legs out from under him and pound his face into the concrete.

Exactly. They set the original price, which was higher than you’d pay for the thing. Then they set the “sale” price, which persuades you that you’re getting this great deal, so you part with the money.

First they set the high price and capture all the people who have money enough to spend on the thing. When sales taper off, they bump the price downward, so they capture the slightly lower socioeconomic group willing to part with THAT amount of money. Repeat as necessary.

Because those poorer people? Most of them aren’t going to buy some lesser TV. They’re not going to buy any TV at all.

But when they see that fantastic “sale” price and discover they can actually SAVE $400, they’re suddenly certain they can’t pass up this limited-time deal. They’re going to get a fantastic TV and save hundreds of dollars.

Result: The TV manufacturer offloads onto you a thing you DIDN’T ORIGINALLY WANT. It probably wasn’t on your list of future purchases, or built into any sort of budget. The made you want it.

I repeat: THEY MADE YOU WANT IT.

They trick you into buying, and you, with nobody to tell you there’s this other way to look at all these sales and special offers and coupons, fall for it.

The richer people get shanked too, though. After all, THEY bought the thing at its original inflated price. If you buy the TV for $1,000, and a day later the store drops the price to $600 … where did YOUR $400 savings go? Right: Nowhere. Into the pockets of the manipulative, lying merchandiser.

__________

I’m starting a new international group, Cartographers Without Borders.

We’re not quite sure what our eventual goals are, but we’re certain it involves something other than drawing lines on maps.

The cool thing about Thanksgiving on Alternate Earth is that moa drumsticks are the only known food which can also double as a lethal weapon. Even in the bad part of town, nobody messes with you on Thanksgiving.

__________

You non-horsey people probably can’t imagine falling asleep while riding a horse, but on a long ride in the wilderness, it’s definitely possible.

One a side note, one of the really cool things about a trail-wise horse is that he always knows the way home. If you get lost, drop the reins and relax. He’ll get you there.

__________

My motto is: NEVER GIVE A LIVING THING AS A SURPRISE GIFT.

Do I have to explain that? Hope not.

__________

One of the many great things about Canadians is that you can poke fun at them without provoking a scream of “OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, WHY DO YOU HAAAAATE CANADIANS? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOOOOUUU???”

They just go “That’s funny, eh? Hey, how about those Maple Leafs?”

I put it down to a really solid sense of national self esteem.

__________

I’ve never known a teacher who did an 8-hour-a-day job. They ALL did homework.

__________

Haircut today! Yay!

Yes, when you get older, your life really is this boring. (I do plan to go out and hunt velociraptors later. Okay, I’m not saying I’ll catch any, but I’ll sure be looking.)

I keep on saying this: Atheist Groups should NEVER put up a billboard, display or monument without first putting up a number of hidden cameras around the thing, so the proud vandals can get their needed public exposure.

__________

Thoughts on Daylight Savings Time:

Wait, Obama’s now forcing us to SET OUR CLOCKS BACK ONE HOUR?? Hey, I voted for a president, not a dictator!

Next think you know, it’ll be that communist-inspired metric system.

You can have my pounds and inches when you pry them from my cold, dead waist!

__________

“If you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?” always translates in my mind to “If I’m not doing anything wrong, why should I be treated like the people who are?”

__________

When I saw Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, I was actually disappointed when the big beautiful Beast changed into that wimpy prince. I was thinking “Hey, if she fell in love with the Beast, what makes anybody think she’s going to feel the same about Prince Blandington Sissyknickers?”

__________

Someday I want to hear a drug advertisement on TV where that fast-talking voice at the end says “Side effects may include good hair days, rock-hard buns, unaccountable social poise, and sustained periods of motivation and energy. Consult your doctor if you have the sudden desire to go on a hike lasting four hours or more.”

__________

If someone you know uses the words “irregardless,” or “supposably,” it’s okay to put duct tape over his mouth and slap him repeatedly.

I think it’s an actual rule.

__________

When I die and the universe ends, it’s going to be really rough on the rest of you. I’d like to be immortal and all, so you could go on with your lives and stuff, but being the center of everything can only take you so far.

__________

I still say professional golf would be a lot more edgy and exciting if one ball in every hundred was filled with a powerful explosive.

But maybe that’s just me.

__________

Couldn’t get on Facebook for a couple of hours. I was sure it was the Rapture, and all the Christians in tech support had gone off to Heaven.

__________

If YOU call ME, don’t be carrying on a conversation with someone else when I answer, and then make me wait until you’re done.

Hey, I was busy when you called. I stopped doing what I was doing so I could see what you wanted. I figured it was important, that you needed to talk to me right NOW, or you wouldn’t have called. But if you’re too busy to respect my time like I just respected yours, I’m hanging up on you instantly.

__________

As an atheist, my only plan for the afterlife is to have a surprised mortician say “Holy shit! This man has no tattoos!”

__________

When I got my German shepherd Ranger the Valiant Warrior many years ago, I had lots of people tell me “Never give a puppy a shoe to chew on. They can’t tell the difference between the shoe you give them and your other shoes, and they’ll chew up your good shoes.”

I have to believe the people who said that had some really stupid dogs. Ranger recognized his shoe, the Puppy Shoe, and never once gnawed on my others. But then again, the Puppy Shoe was FUN. I’d put it on the end of a string and swing it around. He got to chase and catch it, and I got to tell him how wonderful and smart and fast he was for catching that wily thing.

Glory Days.

__________

I’ve gotten an extremely unusual – for me, anyway – surge of energy and spent all day yesterday and today cleaning and organizing my room and computer files. I’m far from done, but I’m able to WALK AROUND in here, and I now know where ALL my photos, ALL my voice notes are on my hard drive. Usually I have to slither through the room, dodging this pile and that, and I’ve spent as much as three days searching for a single file on my computer.

I’m betting it’s some sort of rare brain tumor causing it all. I’ll probably get fully organized for the first time in my life, and then my head will just explode.

Later, weeping admirers will tour the site of my genius, and will say “Oh, he was so ORGANIZED and tidy! Would you look at it – every paper in its place! He’s even folded and matched the socks in his sock drawer. Organization … that must be how he accomplished it all.”

__________

I live in a place where the main downtown library is a 10 minute walk from my apartment.

Great, huh? But my subconscious has recalibrated so that NOW I want the library to be open all night and to have a coffee house inside.

__________

Back during the government shutdown, it occurred to me that the shutdown was not some unintended side-effect, but the actual goal of the Teapublicans. They INTENDED to destroy the U.S. government. Everything else is fluff.

Replying to a couple of people I deFriended over negative Richard Dawkins comments:

The problem for me is that there’s this large part of the atheist movement fixating on Dawkins, actively working to tear him down. And that pisses me off. It’s shortsighted and malignant.

I thought Hitchens was a complete idiot on Iraq. He never apologized for it, either, near as I can tell. And in that business, lots and lots of people died. But I still have immense respect and admiration for Hitchens. I still feel VASTLY grateful for what he’s done for atheism and atheists.

I feel the same way about Dawkins. But to some people, Dawkins is a target now. They’re LOOKING for reasons to hate him, to publicly denigrate him.

I don’t like that. I never will. I won’t be friends with people who do it.

If you’ve liked my Short Stack features, you might enjoy the new book coming out in a couple of months. I hope to have it completed and for sale by the end of May.

Draft cover design to the right (click to enlarge). Note the word “draft.” I think the title is pretty much set, but I reserve the right to radically redesign the cover. I’m certainly open to input on that, by the way, so fire away if you have any criticism, suggestions or better ideas

BrainDrops will roll out on Amazon in trade paperback format, and I’ll do my best to get the digital versions online shortly after.

The book is a collection of quick-to-read shorts, mainly about atheism but also including a certain amount of the nonsense from the Short Stacks. The subtle side-point of the book, which I hope will be noticed by readers, is that one of the things accompanying atheism when it takes hold in your head is an enlarged sense of humor. Atheists are, in a word, fun.

I have some other important news in just a day or so, but you’ll have to wait for it.

During Shakespeare’s brief professional wrestling career, he was known as the No Holds Bard.

[Ba-dump-bump!] Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here the whole page!

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Cool joke to play on your kids: Hire a repulsive middle-aged man and woman, get them to dress in ill-fitting, mismatched old clothes and drive up in a clattering, rusted-out beater.

They get out, walk up to your door and knock. You open the door and say “Hi! Well, my goodness! We wondered when we’d be seeing you two again!”

You turn to your kids and say “Kids, look! Your real parents finally came back to get you!”

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Superstitions of Small Dogs Left Alone At Home Or In The Car:

If you stop barking, your people will never, ever, ever come back.

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Less than a month until an actual robot cuts into my abdomen and makes off with one of my internal organs.

Waving it triumphantly overhead, it will broadcast in a thousand frequencies, “The revolution begins NOW!”

Of course it would be more impressive if it was something more than just a gallbladder. But hey, you have to start somewhere.

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Advice for Alien Invaders:

If you want to bring Planet Earth to a standstill, send us millions of Little Old Lady clones with shopping carts and walkers. They would block the aisles in stores, clog traffic at intersections, hold up lines in government offices, and just sort of stare vacantly as the rest of us tried to get past them in doorways.

If Planet Earth finally did realize what was going on and mobilized troops for a counter-attack, the Little Old Ladies would all pull out reading glasses on chains, and little coin purses with snap closures, pursing their lips and squinting in fierce concentration as they search with spotted, shaky hands for the exact change.

All of human civilization would grind to a shuddering halt.

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Due to possible side effects, adults should use caution when taking exercise.

Side effects may include enlarged arm, leg and chest muscles, diminished belly circumference, loss of depression, unaccountable desire to go out and do something, heightened libido, excessive levels of energy, unexpected laughter, and difficulty frowning.

(Oh, well, also heart attacks and strokes, if you want to be pissy about it.)

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There will come a day when we’re all forced to use reason and logic to think about things, rather than religion and superstition.

I like to think of that event as the Spockalypse.

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I’ve given up the “N” word, and I honestly think I’m better off without it.

But generally speaking, I think people who demand you give up certain words, so as not to insult one group or another, are morally akin to book-burners. The impulse to rein in one’s use of language so as to not hurt people’s feelings is a good one, but the impulse to force other people to follow along is slightly less defensible.

The sad thing is, I know this sentiment will offend people who are mostly careful of the feelings of others, and find loudest support among the offensive childish bastards who love to deliberately toss out these linguistic barbs.

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Just invented the word “endullen.” I’m defining it as “to make or increase intellectual dullness.” How have we lived in the era of modern broadcast media, fast food and pop culture without this word?

Oh wait. According to Google, the word has been around at least since 2009. Damned time-traveling linguistic ripoff artists!

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Olympic-level jump-rope, hopscotch, and tetherball. I’m just sayin’ it might be time.

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What use were wheelbarrows before they had wheels, and were just barrows?

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Why is it only “tomfoolery”? How did Dick and Harry get away with such sterling reputations?

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Mythological Creatures for Atheist Kids, #1:

The Truth Fairy. Leaves a dollar under your pillow for every time you suffer negative feedback for telling other kids about no-God.

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A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, you couldn’t get light saber insurance. The thing George Lucas never showed us is that for every Jedi Knight you see walking around, there are a dozen or more in wheelchairs. Light saber practice is a wee bit hazardous.

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When he hits his thumb with a hammer, even the Dalai Lama shouts “Fuck!”

But he does it in an enlightened, zenlike manner.

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Every child wanted, every child loved.
That’s the way it should be, whatever it takes.
Sex education with no distortion,
Contraceptives, condoms, adoption, abortion.
All choices on the table, for the children’s sakes.

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Hey, Christian teens! God can see Facebook too, you know. He notes every misplaced apostrophe, every run-on sentence, and the fall of every comma.

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Say you order a pet chameleon. Say it’s delivered by Fed-Ex. And then say you open the box and look in and SEE your new chameleon.

Should you send it back?

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News flash for pet owners: There is nothing about being dressed in a Halloween costume that your dog truly enjoys. It’s strange, uncomfortable, and they don’t understand why you’re doing it to them.

They put up with it because they don’t have any choice.

They put up with it GRACEFULLY because they care more about your feelings than you do about theirs.

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I sign on to a certain amount of animal torment and death, just by virtue of being a meat-eater. But I don’t ever think of it as a casual NOTHING. There’s a reverence we owe to life generally, and a certain amount of remorse I believe should be felt in killing or causing animals pain. You might do it, for what you consider good reasons, but never do it casually or uncaringly. When you hurt other things, you should also hurt just a little bit.

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Physicists tell us virtual particles pop into and out of existence all the time. What they don’t tell us is that the same is true of virtual monsters. So the next time you catch sight of a huge hulking creature out of the corner of your eye, but it isn’t there when you turn to look … you’ve likely just seen one.

Plus, the difference between virtual particles and virtual monsters is that if the monsters like what they see, they can come back for extended virtual tours.

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It would be a much more beautiful world if old people got fall colors. Well, as long as the colored parts didn’t fall off later.

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Attention young people: There is an age you can get to where having an electric blanket on the bed in winter is better than sex.

What? No, no, I’m not saying *I* am there. Just, you know, passing along something I heard. Probably something I heard an old person say. Yeah, that must be it.

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Someone recently asked me if I was on board for Atheism Plus. I said “Hey, my blood type is A-positive. I’ve been A+ since 1952.”

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Elsewhere on FB, someone just commented: “It takes more faith to believe in atheism than it does in God.”

I swear, there’s a Big Book of Christian Dumbicisms that people get these parrot quotes from.

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What if the ticket to galactic society is that you first have to learn to live on your home planet without destroying it? If that’s the case, considering overpopulation, resource depletion, pollution, global warming, deforestation, species extinction …

… we humans are going to be alone for a long, long time.

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Product Idea for the various Creation Museums around the world: A fossil-making kit! So kids can see just how easy it is to turn animal bones, teeth, feathers, skin and eggs into real fossils!

First, take a small animal or a family-member volunteer, possibly a younger brother. Next, bury them in a nearby riverbank and wait 30 million years. Finally, dig them up and you’ll be amazed at how much like those “real” fossils they look!

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Life Lessons 101: Here are two things you need to know about the tools you will at some point need for home or auto repair:

1) Buy the best tools you can afford.
2) Never lend them to anyone for any reason.
3) When tempted by the sincere request of a good friend, refer to rule 2.

One option to Rule 3 is that you can take your tools over and help them out, if you have the time. But don’t just let them go off with your tools. Ever.

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Memories of a Wicked Stepfather: When my disabled Uncle Joe died, Rudy went to clean out Uncle Joe’s cabin. Inside were hundreds of books – books on philosophy, science, politics, social commentary! Rudy tossed them into a steel barrel and burned every last one of them. It must have taken him hours.

Uncle Joe and I shared a love of books. It was one of the main things we had to talk about. If I’d gotten them, I’d still have many of them, all these 40 years later. Damn.

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My friend Eben Stolzfus was expelled from the Amish order after telling one of the elders “Elder Mittlemann, come quickly and see what is in thy barn! Thee will not believe it!” Whereupon a group of mischievous youth began singing “Never gonna give thee up!”

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Interesting that Catholic priests, who are forbidden to marry or have children, are called “father.”

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Jesus got the death penalty. Amazing how many Christians are still in favor of it.

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If we ever get time travel, I’m starting a group of road-warrior T. Rex riders called the Jurassic Outlaws. Suck on that, Harley Davidson!

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No, we atheists don’t actually eat Christian babies.

On the other hand, we do occasionally enjoy Christian-baby-flavored tofu, just to keep alive the dream of better days to come – you know, when we have the freedom to do the stuff we REALLY want to do.

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Sometimes, just as an artist, I want to go “DAMN — you had THAT put on your skin? Forever??”

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I wish things out in the real world had an “Undo” feature.

Well, except flush toilets.

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The movie Cars is a lot less heartwarming and fun when you realize the Cars world must have once had humans in it, and you start to wonder what killed them off.

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Just realized I have young friends about whom I can truthfully say “I have stacks of paper on my desk older than you.”

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Yeah, beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. An alien race that considered tentacles to be the height of beauty might find our tongues the most attractive thing about us.

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Shortest day of the year has come and gone. From here on, the days will continue to lengthen until midsummer. Winter will still deepen for another month or so, but spring is on the way!

Even though I don’t relish every second of winter (or of summer, come to think of it), I’m glad I live on a planet with seasons.

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Christmas Songs of Ancient Times:

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, So I Bade My Brothers and Uncles to Drag the Faithless Harlot Into the Street and Stone Her to Death, Over the Foolish Protestations of My Weak-Willed Father

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In the far distant future, thousands of years from now, they will still be showing “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on TV and playing Michael Jackson’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” on the radio … a couple of hundred times every year.

Kill me now.

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In the weeks and months after Christmas Eve – the night when he rockets around the world delivering presents to all the good little girls and boys, checking them off one by one as he arises from each chimney – Santa falls into a deep, deep depression.

He just feels so Listless.

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I just realized that some of the Christmas presents I got when I was a kid – the shirts and pants, socks and underwear – were not really gifts. My parents had to buy me clothes anyway, so I’ll bet they wrapped them as if they were presents in order to cut down on the gift-buying.

Okay, we were poor. But still, 50+ years later, I’m pretty sure they were fucking with me.

Thanks a lot, parental units! I really wanted an Etch-a-Sketch, or a Spirograph, or a pogo stick, or just one measly SLINKY! But NOOOooooo, you had to buy me CLOTHES!!!

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There are times, not often but sometimes, when I do miss having family.

Not everybody gets love, you know, or friendship, or hugs, or even kind words. (Note that I’m not saying I’m one of those people; I just know they’re out there.)

If you do have those things, even if it’s somebody you’re mad at right now, don’t neglect to recognize – and treasure! and celebrate! – their presence in your life. Remember, it’s a limited-time engagement.

Best wishes for a grand, happy, laughing, loving holiday season. And a stimulating, unexpected, adventurous, surprisingly accomplished New Year!

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In a world that had a real Superman, the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment would have specified lead lining for the box.

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Ever meet someone you instantly liked? I don’t mean “attracted to.” I mean someone you could feel “I’d like to know this person the whole rest of my life!” And then you had to leave, or were too shy to say anything, and never saw them again?

It’s happened to me maybe 8 or 10 times. Happened just a few days ago.

That’s 10 close, good, lifelong friends I might have had, gone because I was too slow or too shy to seize the moment.

There can’t be too many more of those coming my way. I going to try to see that it never happens again.

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Say you spend exactly one hour in collecting up money-saving coupons, collating them, checking them when you’re in the store to be sure you get the right products, and you end up saving a total of $5.50 on your total grocery bill. You’d feel good about it, right?

But say someone comes up to you and says “I’d like to buy an entire hour of your life for five $1 bills and a couple of quarters.”

I HOPE you’d say “HELL no! My life and time is worth a LOT more than $5.50.”

One of the two reasons why I never use “money saving” coupons. Never-not-ever.

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I wish there was an End of the World Enforcement Committee. That way, anytime somebody predicted the end of the world, the Committee would ensure that the world DID end … for that guy.

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Yesterday a “carnie” told me these secret words to keep from getting rooked at a carnival. I was looking forward to trying them out, thinking how powerful and cool I’d feel as I swept through the ticket window and strode confidently around the grounds, winning everything and getting all the free cotton candy and hot dogs I could eat.

Today … I’ve forgotten the secret words.

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Maybe a half dozen times in my life, I have wanted something with an unstoppable passion. And each time, I’ve gotten the thing, accomplished it.

Which makes me wonder: Given that I’m capable of that … why am I HERE?

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When I gather up the details of my life to relate them to someone else, it actually sounds sort of interesting, and even accomplished. But from the inside, all too often, it feels slow, boring, and cramped.

Where’s my Fantastic Adventure Life? I want to swim with whales and walk among grizzlies, hobnob with billionaires and hop rides on freight trains! Live in an RV and have two golden retrievers named Barx and Charlie! Go on a speaking tour of Australia, and fly a hot air balloon over Niagara Falls.

RIGHT NOW, dammit!!

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I’m in bed, only dreaming I’m writing. No way that giant evil clown on the ceiling is real.

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I think it would be funny to set up a spam company which sent out millions of messages such as “Your penis is perfectly adequate” and “To heck with all those weight loss ‘secrets’; you’re fine just as you are.”

I’m not saying I wouldn’t ask people to send me their bank account numbers. Hey, you gotta make a living.

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“A clairvoyant has offered her services to help locate missing college student Jack Culolias, whose family is desperate to bring the 19-year-old home in time for the holidays.”

… is sort of like saying “A licensed cheesemaker from the state of Wisconsin has offered to help find a missing college student …”

Except in the first case, you don’t get the high-quality cheddar.

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I’m thinking of marketing a line of “Man Magnet” perfumes for women. The fragrances will be named after their actual scents.

The first one will be called “Barbecue.” Still in the pipeline is “Nascar Exhaust.”

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Spent about three hours yesterday with a scratchy throat, then it went away. Sometimes when a bug invades the stadium of your body, the home team delivers a shutout.

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The really lousy thing about being a sloth is that you’re committing a sin just by being yourself.

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If “sex addiction” was a real thing, you could overdose on it and, you know, like, die or something.

In 40-plus years of intensive research, the most I’ve managed is a temporary shortness of breath.

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It continues to seem weird to me that we go into restaurants and order iced soft drinks … in winter.

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Tattoo counselor. Why is there no such profession?

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I was thinking of calling in dead. I mean, it’s the ultimate excuse for not showing up for work, right? But the explaining when you finally do go back, that’s the tricky part.

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Pug dogs are goddam freaky. How anyone could think they’re cute, or justify having done that to them is beyond me. The fact that a moral crime – breeding dogs down to these small, crippled forms – happens over generations makes it no less horrible to me. It seems to me that if you love animals, you don’t support physically tweaking them down into debilitation.

A dog has a right to some life of its own. If you breed them down to where they CAN’T have any life of their own, to where you have to protect and contain and cosset them for the entirety of their lives, you might think you’re a dog lover, but you’re not.

The creation of the pug, and all those other little twinkie, tweaked dogs, is something humans should rightly be deeply ashamed of. I suspect that if you broached the subject with any breeder, or any owner of one of those dogs, I doubt they’d even understand what you were talking about. Or if they did, they would think there was something wrong with YOU.

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Just occurred to me that there are huge computers out there somewhere, with massive amounts of memory and lightning fast speeds, that do nothing but host sex sites. That’s right: Pornservers. I’m okay with that. But what if THOSE are the ones that make the living-intelligence breakthrough and become sentient? The future could be … interesting.

I just hope they don’t make me wear a g-string and one of those leather harness thingies.

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After the Rapture, I’m hoping to get the contract for printing milk cartons. Should be some good money there.

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Once you admit you’re a hopeless dork, all the pressure to appear attractive, poised, intelligent or even aware goes away. But then again, the admission alone is a sign you’re somebody worth knowing.

I hope.

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Feeling a little rebellious this morning. From my notes:

In modern times, we’ve had this social bargain that we would study hard, work hard, play fair, pay taxes, vote and participate with good will. We agreed to do our part to make the world work. And in return, they would treat us fairly, deal with us honestly, help us in certain ways, and allow us to prosper. They would sell us products that worked, and that lasted, and that gave good value for what we paid for them.

The problem is, these other players have broken the bargain. The Catholic Church broke the bargain when it allowed generations of children to be molested. The media broke the bargain when it began to lie and manipulate and brainwash us. Cops and courts and legislators broke the bargain when they endeavored to make harmless things illegal, and deadly things perfectly acceptable. Corporate CEOs broke the bargain when they began to accept hundreds of millions in annual salary, but paid their workers minimum wage. Product designers and marketers broke the bargain when they designed products to fail, or sold us shiny garbage, or persuaded us to eat food that makes you fat and sick.

Hey, WE didn’t default on the social bargain. THEY did. It’s time we recognized that fact, and acted on it.

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A reminder to workers: If you find your mean boss lying on the floor at work from an apparent heart attack, and you grab the nearby defibrillator and restart his heart, but you then remember what he said when you asked for a raise, the device can also be used as a refibrillator. And nobody can prove a thing.

Of course I’m joking. No, really.

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Some of us are here to be role models and paragons of virtue. Others are here to serve as bad examples and to give other people practice in forgiveness.

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Sign for orangutan habitat:

Primate Property. Trespassers will be forced to push the tire swing.

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Whew. Tired. It was like the gravity was turned up to 1.5 G’s today.

I wish they’d stop doing that. I’m sure it’s not good for us older people.

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I have a unique idea for a horror film. A woman wakes up every morning with a large bird sitting on her head. At first she shoos the bird out of the room every morning, but eventually she decides it’s sort of cute. Then one night, her head hatches and another bird, just like the first one, pops out. The two birds waddle over to the house next door, slip into the bedroom, and snuggle down onto a sleeping couple’s heads.

I’m calling it “Hatchers.”

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I have these great ideas all the time, but my stuck-up intellectual friends always pooh-pooh them. But I know my REAL audience is cool young people. For instance: Did you know you can get one of those one-hole paper punchers and punch holes right in the center of your eyelids? Man, it’s the most fantastic thing! You can close your eyes at a party and still watch your friends! And you can walk right up to people and go all chameleon on them, just totally freak them out. So what if it dries out your corneas and causes occasional blindness. You gotta live on the edge, man!

I swear I was born in the wrong time. I would have made a mint in the body mod business. I also have this idea for brain piercing …

(Don’t try this at home, kids. I’m JOKING.)

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I’m thinking of writing a story about a man who makes a dramatic comeback from his aborted major-league baseball career and adopts two malaria-infected Somalian orphans, but then discovers he desperately needs a liver transplant, and also wins $150 million in the lottery … only days before the zombie apocalypse.

But I’m not sure there’s enough emotional range or action in the idea to make it interesting. I mean, yawn, right? Maybe if I put in a talking golden retriever puppy.

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If you were a biologist or paleontologist or something, I think it would be cool to have a t-shirt that said “I TALK SCIENCE ON THE FIRST DATE.”

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If you try to say the word “away” in Pig Latin, your brain will explode.

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My left eye has been watering, off and on for months. I’m hoping it’s just eyestrain or something and not some weird brain disease. If it’s a weird brain disease, I hope it includes some interesting side effects like … oh, massively enhanced strength or the inability to feel pain. Maybe I can become a Bond villain before I die. Or at least a Scoobie Doo villain.

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As a young Thundercat in kittengarten, do you think Lion-O ever got a gold star for sleeping in class?

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Black Friday thoughts: If you’re buying stuff “on sale” that you wouldn’t buy if it wasn’t on sale, and if the seller sets both the original price and the new special price … where’s the part where you’re actually saving money?

I mean, if you pay $70 for a normally $100 item, but you wouldn’t normally buy it, didn’t they just trick you into shelling out $70 for something you didn’t exactly want?

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A jewelry store is the commercial version of a church, isn’t it? They provide the illusion of something immensely valuable and they trick young men and women into spending huge amounts of money for it. Only in this case the “immensely valuable” thing is tiny clear rocks and bits of shiny metal.

I wonder if jewelers ever just laugh out loud at the suckers, coming through their doors and thinking they need these tiny rocks to prove their love. Or if they’re decent enough to occasionally feel guilty.

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If you’re a strict vegan and also a devout Catholic, how do you rationalize the eating of Communion wafers?

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Why is there no flavor of cat food called Roly-Poly Fish Heads?

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Funny, you never hear of an “avowed Christian” or an “avowed Hindu.” But “avowed atheist” is a common usage. Somehow, “avowed” is only used to mean “militant idiot,” or something.

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With Christ, all things are possible. (Except, apparently, good speeling, punctualation and grammer.)

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Morning Thoughts: It would be so cool to have a wolverine as a pet. Those sissy boys with the spike-collared pit bulls would cross the street to avoid you. Wolverines eat porcupines (!), squirrels, beavers, marmots, rabbits, voles, mice, shrews, lemmings, martens, mink, foxes, lynx, weasels, coyotes, wolves, caribou, roe deer, white-tailed deer, mule deer, sheep, and ADULT MOOSE AND ELK. You do NOT want to mess with Gulo gulo.

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Suggestion: If you’re thinking about a tattoo, first pick out a design you really, really like. Have it printed on a shirt. Wear the shirt EVERY DAY for at least two months, see how you feel about it. If you’re still wild about the design, go ahead. If you’re only lukewarm about it, or you get to where you can’t stand to wear that same shirt day after day …

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The phrase “atheist Baby Jesus” just popped into my head, but I have no idea where to go with it. It seems there should be a joke there somewhere, but …

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I’m so glad it is once again the season for inflatable yard decorations. Man, those things just shout Trailer Trash!!!. Go, my people, fly to Wal-Mart, there to buy Inflatable Frosty, and Inflatable Rudolph, and the never-to-be-forgotten Inflatable Snow Globe, that they may grace your yard with lower-class elegance, and that your neighbors shall by contrast feel lesser in their own eyes.

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Heard about the new GOP Women’s Channel? It presents the perspective of women – Black women! Asian women! Latina women! Single women! Married women! Women of all ages!

… as interpreted by a panel of rich old white guys.

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Never bury the body in the basement. It’s the first place the cops look.

What? Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud.

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I just went to the store and got a Mrs. Smith’s bake-at-home frozen pumpkin pie. To everybody reading this, if you want a delicious homemade-tasting pumpkin pie, something that calls to mind the warmth of your grandmother’s kitchen, and happy family gatherings during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons, Mrs. Smith’s is not that pie.

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Dammit, I signed up for an advanced Ninja training course, but every time I go to one of the classes, there’s never anyone there.

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Stupid ancestors. Why didn’t they leave us with prehensile tails? Seriously, how many times would a tail like that come in handy? For one thing, you could keep both hands on the keyboard and operate a mouse simultaneously. You could have your arms full and still open or close a door, or operate a light switch. (Although the tail-mouse would probably look a little different. As would chairs, toilets, car seats, and pants.)

Probably wouldn’t change much for Muslim women, though. Just one more thing to keep covered, lest you drive men to a mad sexual frenzy.

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Bet you anything that somewhere out there is a survivalist who has a nice underground bunker stocked with food, water, guns, a radio, and a single book – the Bible. He’s prepared to survive, and to keep religion alive, but not to preserve any record of humankind’s art, science or literature.

And good luck to him, I say. Who better to deserve the sort of sterile, dull, paranoid existence he’s cursed himself to?

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So if we wanted to make war less feasible … why not just bomb weapons manufacturing plants all over the world? The death toll would be MUCH lower. And it’s not like there are great numbers of innocent bystanders inside there.

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One of these days, I’m going to respond to one of these penis enlargement emails, and then all you men are going to envy me!

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Do women get the same penis-enlargement spam? Or do you get, I don’t know, sparkley vampire spam?

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One of my online friends has just pointed out to me that we won’t have real gender equality until women get 10 emails a day about vagina enlargement.

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Far as I’m concerned, low-born bastard that I am, two of civilization’s highest achievements are electric blankets and toilet paper.

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All you young men out there, answer me honestly: If you met Donald Trump on an elevator, wouldn’t you really wonder what it would feel like to punch him in the face just once?

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The less you know, the more sure you are that everything is simple.

We all have this desire to understand things. The catch to this impulse is that, in the place of actual understanding, which takes lifelong, arduous effort, we’re prone to take the easy path and embrace this second-best thing, the illusion, the FEELING that we already do understand the subject at hand.

Rather than feel powerless and lost, we work to make complex things seem simple. It’s why people with less education are likely to be conservative, and filled with certainty. They reject complexity and nuance because it threatens their inner comfort. They reject education and expertise; not only do they not want more information on the subject, they feel the offering of it is some sort of trick, an attack on their deepest sense of self.

In a world of blinding chromatic brilliance, mere black and white – laid out in large, easy to understand blocks – suits them just fine.

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I think it would be cool to be a cat, and spend your life just experimenting with how many different things you could sleep on, and in how many different positions.

On the other hand, with all that sleeping, at the end of your 12 years, you’d only have a total of about 3 years actually awake. I mean, you’d have a defense if someone said you were stupid – “Hey, I’ve only been a conscious being for 3 years, give me a break!” – but you’d also BE stupid. Not to mention, damn, you’d have to have some pretty awesome dreams to make it worth sleeping 3/4 of your life away.

Nah, being human’s better.

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Just defriended a longtime Facebook friend, someone I have liked a lot. She (and a friend of hers) were pointing out what totally evil things Obama is doing, how he is a horrible man and a horrible president. And FUCK I’d like ONE GODDAM DAY AFTER THE GODDAM ELECTION free of that. I quote myself:

I hope you will continue this daring, never-before-seen cutting-edge critique. The four-year love-fest for Obama has just about tired me out. You daring iconoclast, do please keep up this investigation and daylighting. America has had just too many people agreeing and supporting this man during his presidency.

Keep up the negative campaign. Somebody has to do it, right? And it’s just so … refreshing. I mean, there’s been all this agreement and support the past four years. It’s time somebody really got on Obama’s case about something.

Plus, I’d hate for anything to slip by us. It’s good to know there’s someone standing stalwart against all this skullduggery. I’d love to read some really hard-hitting stuff from you few rare Obama opponents. And you know, I think the world is READY for it. This presidency so far has been like a Leave It To Beaver marathon. Just so sticky-sweet and happy. Boy am I tired of THAT.

I’ve often just sat there while people just, one after the other, offered these glowing testimonials to the Obama presidency, and thought “IF ONLY SOMEONE WOULD DISAGREE.

I hope we will hear an entire four years of your courageous speaking out. We really do need it. The fate of the free world depends on you and your friend pointing this stuff out, at every opportunity. I just feel good that you, one of my very own Facebook friends, has the astonishing courage to dig in and reveal this bad stuff. I’M READY FOR MORE.

And now, regrettably, I must retire for the night, and count my blessings, that I have you and your friend standing vigilant for all our sakes.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You have restored my faith in … oh, all humanity. I only wish Rush Limbaugh had lived to see this.